


I never meant to leave you there, alone with everything you ever feared

by sdwolfpup



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon-typical Cursing, F/M, Gen, but it makes me feel better about what's to come, not a happy ending per se, post episode, post-8x04, results may vary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 07:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18795703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup
Summary: “You didn't even hear me ride up,” Bronn went on. “I'm not sure you're hearing me now.”“I'm ignoring you.”“Like you ignored all that crying back there?”Jaime's head whipped around and he glared at Bronn. “Were you spying on me?”*********On the road to King's Landing, Jaime unexpectedly gains a traveling companion and a second chance.





	I never meant to leave you there, alone with everything you ever feared

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I was going to make it through this week without having a post-episode fic idea but joke was on me! Title adapted from James Arthur's "From the Grave."

“You're a real cunt, you know that?”

Jaime whirled his horse around on the road and peered into the darkness at his back. Dawn would be soon, but not soon enough to wash away the black of his own thoughts. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked as Bronn trotted his horse closer, glaring at him. The crossbow – Cersei's gift – was tied to Bronn's saddlebags, so at least Jaime wasn't in immediate danger. 

“I didn't want you to run away and forget your promise to me.” 

Jaime turned his horse south again without responding. He didn't have the energy for anything right now except grabbing his own will by the throat and holding himself pointing firmly towards King's Landing; especially when all he wanted to do was ride back north again. Bronn trotted up next to him and settled his horse at Jaime's side. 

“You do seem to like breaking promises,” Bronn continued. 

“Fuck off,” Jaime said tiredly. 

“Don't think I will yet. I have to make sure you get where you're going safely or your brother will surely use it as a reason to weasel out of our agreement.”

Jaime's body felt heavy with exhaustion. He'd been on the road for several hours now and before that...it was best not to think of before. He could only think of now, and what would surely happen in the future if he did not continue south to King's Landing. To Cersei. 

“You didn't even hear me ride up,” Bronn went on. “I'm not sure you're hearing me now.” 

“I'm ignoring you.”

“Like you ignored all that crying back there?”

Jaime's head whipped around and he glared at Bronn. “Were you spying on me?”

“I told you I'd find you again.”

“When the war was over.” 

Bronn rolled his eyes. “You golden-haired idiots couldn't survive walking ten feet without tripping over your own arses.” 

“We've survived this long.”

“Yes, and you're welcome for that.”

Jaime glared at Bronn, but the man wasn't entirely wrong. He never would have survived the dragon without the sellsword, at least. It would have been easier to die there, though, melted into armor and bone and a Valyrian steel sword, than to ride now through the cold and snow back to his sister. Especially when there was warmth and shockingly blue eyes he could have been with instead. 

“Anyway, you handled that about as well as could be expected given you think with your truly fucked up dick.” 

Anger swarmed up through the fog of tiredness and despair, and Jaime turned his horse into Bronn's, leaned over and grabbed the other man's collar with his left hand, dragging him near. “Shut your mouth or you won't live to see your reward.” 

Jaime felt the point of a dagger in his armpit, saw Bronn lift his eyebrows mockingly. “You don't need your last hand to give me Highgarden.”

He wanted to strangle Bronn; to shove him off his horse and ride away; to forget any of this had happened and ride back to her and throw himself at her feet and beg for her forgiveness. Instead Jaime's fist tightened for a moment before letting go and the knife disappeared from where it had come. 

“Keep your hands to yourself, Lannister, and we'll be fine.” 

“No we won't,” Jaime said, riding south.

**********

It had taken too fucking long to get his horse ready.

He'd just wanted to leave, without saying goodbye or explaining himself or convincing her why he could not stay and she could not come with him. That had been the fear that had driven him hardest, that she would never listen to reason because she was as honorable and brave as he was craven and weak. And even when he'd known she was there watching him he had ignored her, hoping like a naïve child that she would just turn around and go back inside. 

But he loved Brienne because she never ran from hard things, and she loved him because...he honestly didn't know why. But hiding in a bed piled with warm furs in the north while his sister burned everyone to ash in the south would only make it worse and more obvious that he was not worthy of Brienne's misplaced belief. In order to earn that big-eyed stare of adoration he had to leave her. 

He'd fucked it up, of course. He known that less than a mile after he'd left, had known it even as he'd said the words. But it was better that she know him fully, that she hate him for all the ways he had fucked up all of the things in his life, not just this one and most precious. 

Perhaps when it was all done and they called him Queenslayer or Kinslayer, too, she might understand why he'd had to leave and she would hate him a little less.

**********

Bronn had been a good enough traveling companion in the past, but whatever had happened since their last journey had turned him insufferable. He talked incessantly the first day about his plans for Highgarden, on the second day about all the whores he'd been with since he'd become a lord, and then as Jaime chewed salted beef without tasting it on the third evening, Bronn had talked about what was going on in King's Landing.

“She's pregnant you know?” he finally said as the fire crackled low between them and Jaime fought off sleep and the anxious nightmares that would inevitably follow. Sometimes he was drowning in wights in them; most of the time it was Brienne who was. Last night it had been Cersei with a knife at Brienne's throat and he'd woken to the sound of ripped flesh and blood staining pale skin. 

“I know,” Jaime said. 

“It's yours then?”

“Probably.” 

“Huh.” Bronn picked his teeth with a twig and then threw it into the fire. “You gonna kill 'em both?”

Jaime stared at his half-eaten dinner. “I'm going to stop her.”

“You are, are you? How're you going to do that?”

“I'll reason with her.”

Bronn burst out laughing, a barking, cruel sound that echoed into the night. “You poor, stupid shit.” 

Jaime threw his food into the fire and stalked over to his bedroll, kicking it open, ignoring Bronn's low chuckles. He was lying down, back to the other man and eyes starting to close before Bronn spoke again. 

“You really think you can just say a few pretty words and she'll give up ruling the Seven Kingdoms?”

He didn't, really. Jaime knew Cersei had stopped listening to him years ago, if she even ever had. He suspected now those times he'd thought she listened in the past he'd just been saying things she was already thinking. Jaime knew words would not be enough, but he had enough foolishness in him still he hoped he would find some other way that wouldn't end with his sword in her stomach. 

“Maybe you could fuck her out of it, though I don't think that Tarth woman would like that.”

“Ser Brienne,” Jaime ground out between tightly clenched teeth. 

“Ser?” Bronn's usual world-weary disinterest had disappeared and his voice was high with curiosity. “She's a ser now?”

Jaime leaned back a little to turn his head and look at Bronn. “I knighted her.”

“Is that what they're calling it?” Jaime shut his eyes and sighed and Bronn continued, sounding annoyed at the lack of response. “You can do that?”

“Any knight can.”

“Bullshit.”

Jaime looked at him then, serious and sure. “It's true.”

“I can knight any man I please?”

“Any man or woman, yes, technically.” 

“Well I'll be fucked.” Bronn settled in his own bedroll, his eyes gleaming at the idea. “I should knight some of the whores down in King's Landing then, see if I get better service.”

Jaime sat up, the anger seething through him again. “It's not a game or a bribe you fucking barbarian. It's an honor. An honor neither you or I deserve.”

“But Brienne of Tarth does?” Jaime's whole body tensed, somehow knowing what Bronn was going to ask next even as he said it. “Did you knight her before or after you started fucking?”

He sprung out of his bedroll and had landed on top of Bronn without even thinking, scattering the last burning wood of the fire as he ran through it. His golden hand wasn't good for much, but he swung it like a club now, battering Bronn in the shoulder, the neck, and a solid hit across the face that sent Bronn to swearing. Jaime held onto Bronn with his other hand, trying to hold him in place enough to keep beating him. 

“Fuck!” Bronn yelled, and he managed to throw a handful of dirt into Jaime's face, where it scratched into his eyes and nose. Jaime smacked Bronn again and then fell backward, rubbing frantically at his face, eyes watering. He waited for the feel of Bronn's fist, or more likely his sword, but when he opened his eyes again, he saw through a watery film that Bronn was just staring at him, holding his jaw. 

“What I don't get,” Bronn said when he saw Jaime looking, “is why you feel this way about your lady knight and you still left her like that.” 

Jaime coughed dirt into his hand. “I had to leave her,” he said hoarsely. “Cersei has killed one of the dragons already, has destroyed the Targaryen fleet. You don't think she wouldn't rip off Brienne's fingers one by one if Cersei found her at King's Landing?”

Bronn rubbed his jaw one last time and then shook his head. “You're going to have to control yourself better if you're not going to kill Cersei. She'll say the same fucked up things I am, and worse.”

“I won't talk about Brienne with her at all.”

“She'll ask.”

“She won't. She doesn't know.” Bronn coughed and Jaime felt his heart contract, sharp and fast like a crossbow bolt to the heart. “What did you do?”

“I kept myself alive. I had to report back where I was so Cersei didn't send anyone after me. I may have shared some of what I've seen the last month.”

Jaime groaned and slammed his fist against his thigh. “You've killed her with your fucking self-interest!”

“I didn't think you'd leave you stupid twat!” Jaime stood and started awkwardly putting his bedroll away again. “What are you doing?” Bronn asked. 

“I'm going to King's Landing.”

“It's the middle of the night and you've got days of travel left.”

“Yes and I can't waste a minute. I have to get there before...” Jaime swallowed hard, wondering who Cersei would send in the middle of a war. If he was lucky it would just be a raven to Bronn with an order to kill Brienne; if he was unlucky, it would be The Mountain or worse. 

“Wait,” Bronn said, standing. “I know I fucked this up for her. I'll go back to Winterfell, tell her to watch out.”

Jaime narrowed his eyes at the other man. “Why? We're not friends, Bronn.”

“We're not. But I know Brienne of Tarth doesn't deserve whatever Cersei would plan for her. She doesn't deserve to feel like shit after your sorry goodbye either.”

“She won't have sex with you.”

“I wouldn't try. But I can clean up your mess a bit, as usual.” 

Jaime swallowed hard, closed his eyes for a moment and tried to breathe through the worry and the unexpected gratitude. “Thank you.”

Bronn shrugged, laid back down. “I'll leave in the morning. Anything you want me to tell her?”

 _Tell her I love her now, and always. Tell her I am a fool. Tell her I hope she lives a long and happy life,_ he thought desperately. Aloud he said softly, “call her Ser Brienne. Tell her...” What could he say that would make any of this okay? “Tell her Oathkeeper will always be hers.” 

Bronn looked confused but he nodded and Jaime finished saddling his horse before using a nearby stump to smoothly mount. 

“Goodbye Lannister,” Bronn said, sounding already half asleep. 

Jaime didn't respond, he just aimed south and continued into the darkness, leaving the light and warmth at his back once more. But this time memories – of bright blue eyes, faint scars from the claws of a bear, her soft and sleepy face – were a star guiding him on, giving him hope that someday she would think of him, and she would smile.


End file.
